Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Back to school: Jewish kids' worksheets (and doodles) from the Middle Ages

Israel's National Library has a fascinating article showing children's practice sheets to learning Hebrew from the Cairo Genizah, a thousand years of how Jewish children learned to write.

These sheets shows the child having written the Hebrew letters over and over again, just as they do today.

Younger children were given hand-crafted worksheets by their teachers with the Hebrew letters written in outline to be colored in. Coloring books are not that new!

But my favorite is this sheet of practicing writing the Hebrew alphabet that ends up with a series of doodles.

That's pretty much what my schoolwork looked like as well.

Another article shows that women were very involved in Jewish education for both boys and girls, with many female teachers mentioned in the Cairo Genizah - sometimes together with their husbands, but also widows who needed a profession.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Every year, the Saudi king hosts hundreds of Palestinians whose family members are "martyrs" - i.e., terrorists - for the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

This year a thousand Palestinians were honored by the king for their family members trying to murder Jews.

Fatah's Facebook page describes the reception as "A full reception with red carpets, roses and sweets for Palestinian martyr families as soon as they arrive in Mecca for the hajj as guests of the custodian of the two holy mosques, a reception befitting the sacrifices of their martyrs."

Saudi Arabia might not like Hamas very much, but it doesn't mean that it is against terrorism against Jews.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

.@HRW's Ken Roth spouts the new "Israel=White Supremacist" lie

This tweet from Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch shows, yet again, that his bias against Israel is pathological.

Yes, Ken Roth has embraced the latest and wholly fallacious anti-Israel trend: to conflate Israel with white supremacists because the bigots claim to be Zionist.

Not because Israel embraces the bigots, but because the bigots pretend to embrace Israel.

I've shown how absurd these arguments are before and have shown that the exact same logic damns the "progressives" far more than Zionists because neo-Nazis love to quote the anti-Israel articles written by the supposedly liberal progressives.

The neo-Nazis know Jew-hatred when they read it, and the neo-Nazi Stormfront site has quoted both Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada over 100 times each, Ali Abunimah himself over 35 times, and Max Blumenthal over 80 times. Today's Nazis aren't approvingly quoting Naftali Bennett or Binyamin Netanyahu - they are quoting the people that Ken Roth links to on his Twitter feed.

In fact, Stormfront also quotes Human Rights Watch for fuel for its anti-Israel articles. Stormfront was just taken down, but Google cache shows several of the articles:

This article at Stormfront that quotes Ken Roth and HRW has a headline that would be right at home at "progressive" websites that HRW employees write for.

Which means, according to this logic, that HRW is a Nazi-sympathizing organization.

But Ken Roth isn't going to tweet "Many neo-Nazis embrace @HRW research against Israel." Because he is interested in his anti-Israel narrative, not the truth.

Even worse is that Roth has ignored that Arabs have embraced actual Nazi ideology. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Nazi propaganda in Arabic is still sold at Arab book fairs, the blood libel is still mentioned in mainstream Arab newspapers, and the amount of blatant antisemitism in Palestinian media fills up the Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI websites.

But Ken Roth isn't going to equate Arabs with the Nazis that they openly have admired at the highest levels. He only wants to equate Israelis with racism and bigotry, not Arabs who practice those very attributes every day, publicly, in their own media and public statements.

Once again, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch shows that he is beneath contempt.

The article he links to, by Nada Elia, states the equivalence of Zionism and fascism as a flat truth. But she accidentally reveals her real agenda item in this one sentence:

If we are to gain anything from this critical moment, we absolutely must seize the opportunity offered us by white supremacists to foreground the similarities between fascism and Zionism.

White supremacists want to use their newfound affinity for Zionism for their own political purposes - and anti-Zionists want to use white supremacists' pretense to love Zionism to further their own political interests.

Nada Elia is acting just like the white supremacists are. And Ken Roth approves.

(By the way, Elia's Twitter handle is @NadaBDS. How twisted must one be to choose to dedicate one's entire online presence towards hating Israel? That's who Ken Roth chooses to feature.)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas presents a peace plan. But with whom?

Mahmoud Abbas has finally come up with his own detailed peace plan. Instead of waiting for others to present him with plans that he invariably rejects, he has shown the initiative and created a seven point plan to finally bring peace to an intractable conflict.

Oh, not with Israel. Abbas' peace plan is with the internationally designated terror group Hamas!

The PLO leader met with Turkish leader Erdogan and
presented him with his framework to unify with Hamas (yet again.) The points aren't important, but they include Hamas dissolving its administrative committee that controls Gaza, the forming of a national unity government including all terror groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, coming up with a solution to paying Gaza employees of the PA, allowing electricity and medicines to return to Gaza, and calling for new elections.

Abbas' strategy for peace with Israel is the same as it has been for years: keep rejecting all offers until one comes along that makes him happy.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

08/28 Links Pt2: Sarsour Compares Zionists To Neo-Nazis; PA: Attack a Jew and Get a Passing Grade at School!

From Ian:

WATCH: Linda Sarsour Compares Zionists To White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis

Last week, Israel hater and faux feminist Linda Sarsour spoke at a rally in support of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Listen to who she grouped us with…before promising to “put our lives on the lines for justice.”
This is a woman who claims to fight Jew hatred. The problem is she has so many people fooled.
(Skip to 9:30 h/t Yerushalimey)

PMW: PA to kids: Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, Tiberias, Acre all in "my country Palestine"

Music and song play an important role in Palestinian Authority political messaging to its children. The PA’s most fundamental message to its people and its children, that all of Israel is actually “Palestine,” is prominent in many songs broadcast regularly on the official PA and Fatah TV stations.
One of these songs depicts a bird that flies over all of “my country Palestine.” The bird “flies over” the Israeli cities Safed, Tiberias, Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, Beit Shean, Jaffa, and Ramle, all of which are depicted as part of “my country Palestine.” [Official PA TV, The Best Home, Aug. 25, 2017]
Palestinian Media Watch has noted this song at least 30 times already during 2017, on official PA and Fatah's Awdah TV. The most recent time was this week on PA TV in the new version sung by a young girl on the most important Palestinian children’s program, The Best Home.
The following are the full words to the song, that depict all of Israel as “Palestine”:
“Oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy.
My country Palestine is beautiful.
Turn to Safed, and then to Tiberias,
and send regards to the sea of Acre and Haifa.
Don't forget Nazareth - the Arab fortress,
and tell Beit Shean about its people's return.
Oh flying bird, circling around...
by Allah, oh traveling [brid], I burn with envy.
My country Palestine is beautiful. [...]
Go to Jenin and bring me from its valley
greeting to Nablus, Tulkarem and their soil.
Drink the water of Jaffa's port,
don't forget Ramle and Ramallah.
Oh flying bird, circling around...
by Allah, oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy.
My country Palestine is beautiful."

Palestinian Incitement: Attack a Jew and Get a Passing Grade at School!

The Palestinian Education Ministry has granted any student who was arrested for throwing stones and/or Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles a passing grade.
Awarding passing grades to students who commit violent attacks against Israeli motorists is one of many methods of incitement to terror practiced by the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Jewish Press reported.
According to the news site, an Israeli security source told Channel 20:
“One time we stopped a terrorist who threw a Molotov cocktail and took him for interrogation, where we found out that he had decided to carry out the attack because that morning he had a matriculation exam, and it turns out that for them it is customary that someone who is arrested for carrying out an attack on the day of an exam to receive a passing grade automatically.”
“They are frightened of their fathers,” said another security source, “So if they know in advance that they are likely to fail the exam, they choose terrorism in order to get a passing grade.”
The more popular forms of PA incitement include, for example, cultural events glorifying terrorists; naming schools and city streets after terrorists; and TV shows for preschoolers, school-aged children and teens promoting anti-Semitism and lies about the “Zionist entity.”
Desperation to pass the school year is a less common reason for violence; nonetheless, several young terrorists admitted they carried out such attacks for that very reason, the Israeli security source said.

A survey of 21st century predictions of the end of Israel

Iranian army chief Brigadier-General Abdul Rahim Mousavi, has said that Israel will disappear within the next 25 years. Which means by 2042.

We need to add this to the list of predictions that others have made:

In the early 2000s, Hamas leader Bassam Jirrar - based on Koranic analysis, said Israel would end by 2022. A Lebanese cleric agreed with those calculations in 2015.

An Egyptian astrologer predicted in 2007 that Israel would be gone by 2024.

Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin said that it would be 2026 or 2027.

In 2016 Iranian Basij Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said that Israel would no longer exist by 2025.

In 2009, Iranian TV and some other conspiracy theory sources claimed (falsely) that there was a CIA report predicting that Israel would not last 20 more years, or 2029.

Essam al-Erian, the deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt, said in 2013 that Israel would disappear within ten years, or 2023.

In 2012, the Ayatollah Khamenei predicted that Israel would disappear, but he didn't name a date. He fixed that in 2015, saying that Israel wouldn't survive another 25 years, or 2040 - well after his death.

Of course, Arabs have been predicting the end of Israel for a lot longer than this.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Today's academic fraud: Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. He wrote an op-ed in Al Jazeera that starts off admirably being against racism and then devolves into a large aside filled with absurd hate against Israel.

The full rant is not worth the electrons it would use to post it here, but here is his conclusion for that section:

Today, Israelis have absoletely no moral authority, not an iota, to denounce the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, for the neo-Nazis intend to do in the United States what the Zionists have already done in Israel: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is a model for the white supremacists in the United States. Mass expulsion of Palestinians, the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yasin and elsewhere: those are the Zionist trademarks the Neo-Nazis hope and wish and strive to replicate in the United States.

It's funny, because anyone who has ever spent thirty seconds walking around in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv can see far more Muslims walking around than can be seen in the US or most of Europe. After all, Arabs are some 20% of Israel's population.

They don't walk around with the fear that American Muslims do. They aren't worried about attacks on their homes or mosques. Their muezzin can be heard louder and more frequently than in any city in Europe. They have government funded schools. They have absolutely no worries about being ethnically cleansed. They have less fear of terror attacks than Jews do - in the Jewish state. The few anti-Arab incidents are statistically minuscule compared to the racist incidents in the US - and even compared to antisemitic incidents in the West. Arabs are safer in Israel than they are in the rest of the Western world. Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the territories are considerably more secure that they will remain in their own houses in ten years than Palestinians in Lebanon or Egypt.

In other words, Dabashi - a professor at Columbia - is a fraud and a liar. But he knows that his readers won't call him on it because they live in the hate-Israel bubble where no anti-Zionist statement is too outrageous to be confidently said, and truth is a joke.

There is a lot of outrage over lies by the far-Right. The Atlantic has a cover story about how the truth is no longer of interest to the right in the US. But it ignores the lies of the Left. And the number of academics who are willing to openly lie to advance their own political agenda is arguably more dangerous that the liars and fantasists of the Right - because the Leftist liars claim the mantle of truth and the right to judge the others.

There is no difference between those who believe in conspiracy theories from the Right and those who believe these sorts of lies from the Left. (What is describing Israel as being interested in a long term plan of ethnic cleansing for 70 years - something it could have done in months if it wanted to - if not a conspiracy theory?)

Dabashi is just another academic fraud.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

08/28 Links Pt1: PM to UN Chief: You've allowed Palestinian hatred to thrive; Hamas: Iran ties restored

From Ian:

BESA: Victory, Not Deterrence, Will Be Israel’s Goal if War Breaks Out Again in Gaza

Creating deterrence was Israel’s goal in the last three conflicts it fought against Hamas, but that objective has been cast aside. Any future armed clash with Gaza’s Islamist rulers will be guided by a new Israeli objective: that of achieving a crystal clear victory over the enemy.
In past models of conflict, Israel responded to Hamas aggression through the use of force in a way that was designed to punish Hamas and convince it to return to a state of calm. Systematically destroying Hamas’s military capabilities was not an Israeli objective.
Today, while Israel hopes to avoid war, it is preparing for the possibility of a new conflict. War could erupt again in Gaza for a wide range of reasons.
Should hostilities resume, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) plans to make sure the end stage of that clash will be an unmistakable Israeli victory, and that no one will be able to mistake it for a tie or stalemate.
This change in approach has been brewing over the past three years, ever since the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. That operation was launched by Israel to defend itself against large-scale projectile attacks and cross-border tunnel threats from Gaza. At two months’ duration, it was one of Israel’s most protracted conflicts.
It was also the third large-scale clash fought with Hamas since 2009. At the end of each round of fighting, the military wing of Hamas remained intact, and was able to quickly begin rearming and preparing new capabilities for the next outbreak of hostilities.

Liberman: Lebanon should know we’ll use ‘great force’ in future war

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman threatened that Israel would respond “with very great force” in a future conflict with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist group, during a meeting with the visiting United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday.
The defense minister told the UN leader that Hezbollah is “stashing various weapons, including missiles and rockets, that are aimed at Israeli citizens in the homes of residents of the villages and cities along the border.”
Liberman added that Iran was “working to set up factories to manufacture accurate weapons within Lebanon itself.”
According to the defense minister, that situation is “insufferable for the State of Israel, and we are determined to prevent every threat to the security of Israeli citizens.”
The presence of at least two Iranian missile manufacturing facilities was revealed by Israel earlier this summer. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Guterres that Iran was also involved in the construction of another missile base in Syria.

JPost Editorial: IRAN IN SYRIA

Now Iran has an opportunity to establish a new center of influence, not through proxies, as is the case in Gaza, Lebanon or Yemen, but directly by having Iranian forces on the ground. From there, it could establish air force bases, deploy tanks and divisions and amplify, in an unprecedented way, the threat it already poses to the State of Israel.
Under these circumstances, Netanyahu is smartly maneuvering between Washington and Moscow. It is still not clear if he can succeed in getting a commitment, from either party, that Iran will not be allowed to stay, but there are other goals that might be attainable.
Aware that a direct conflict between Israel and Iranian forces in Syria could endanger the Assad regime, Putin might be able to distance Iran from Syria’s southern border with Israel and Jordan. There can also be a Russian-Iranian understanding limiting Iran’s deployment of missiles in Syria. The Russians can justify this by claiming to be interested in maintaining stability and preventing Iran from endangering the Assad regime by opening a front with Israel.
The problem with any deal of this kind is that the Iranians are not a party that can be trusted. They see themselves on the cusp of a historic conquest and will fight to ensure it succeeds.
In the end and like in the past, this may be a case of Israel not being able to rely on anyone but itself. Israel has proven its readiness to act in Syria over the last five years. It may need to continue doing so.

Iran says S-300 air defense system now ‘fully integrated’

Iran’s advanced S-300 air defense system, delivered by Russia after years of delay, is now “fully integrated” into the air defense network, a senior Iranian air force commander told the country’s state media Sunday.
In an interview with the Tasnim news network, Gen. Abolfazl Sepehri Rad, deputy commander of the Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base, said the missile defense system has been stationed across Iran and is ready for “practical operations.”
The general also said that the Iran has launched research programs to manufacture other air defense systems, and that “good results” have been achieved.
Iran had been trying to acquire the S-300 system for years to ward off repeated threats by Israel to bomb its nuclear facilities, but Russia had held off delivery until after a July 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, in line with UN sanctions imposed over the country’s nuclear program.

From YNet:

A Palestinian refugee receives a budget four times larger than a Syrian, Iraqi or African refugee, this according to a study conducted by the Abba Eban Institute of International Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.

At the end of last week, UNRWA released its annual financial report, which stated that in 2016 the organization spent an average of $246 for each of the 5.3 million Palestinians it defines as refugees, while UNHCR spent only a quarter of that, $58 per refugee.

In addition, the data show that UNRWA employs some 30,000 people, while the World Refugee Agency, which handles tens of millions worldwide, employs only 10,000 people.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor heads the Abba Eban Institute, which formulated a plan of action for structural changes that will improve the treatment of refugees around the world by merging UNRWA into the UNHCR.

"Consolidating the budgets and manpower of both agencies will lead to better treatment of refugees," Prosor said. "In Jordan, for example, there are 44 clinics that treat refugees from the civil wars in Syria and Iraq, out of 233 clinics that are required for this mission. Alongside them are 25 UNRWA clinics that ignore Syrian refugees and care only for Palestinian refugees.

"Uniting the resources of the two agencies will enable more quality and efficient assistance, and contribute to a solution for what that the UN itself has defined as the most serious refugee crisis in history."

Prosor will present these results to the UN, which explains why he is calling the people getting aid from UNRWA "refugees."

In fact, they aren't, a fact that is obvious when you consider that no Palestinian Arab has ever successfully applied for and received official asylum from other countries as a refugee from Israel (or "Palestine.") The few who have received asylum get that status because they are fleeing persecution by Syria or Hamas, not Israel.

So in reality it isn't that Palestinian refugees are getting quadruple the aid per capita, and about 30 times the manpower per capita, as other refugees.

The real story is that fake refugees are taking aid money away from real refugees.

Because only the fake refugees can claim that Jews are their persecutors. If it wasn't the Jewish state that was being blamed for the fake refugee problem, there wouldn't be an issue, and these people would have integrated into their surrounding Arab nations quietly and effectively decades ago.

Prosor is trying to do something noble but as long as the truth is being hidden, nothing can really be done. UNRWA should be dismantled but it must be done with honesty. Everyone knows the truth about Palestinian "refugees" but no one is willing to say it out loud.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The virulently anti-Israel "Jewish Voice for Peace" has released a book that is ostensibly about antisemitism. But it doesn' ttake much to realize that the book is really about justifying the merciless criticism of the Jewish state, and only Israel, beyond any context and beyond criticism of any other country, as legitimate.

The foreword is by Judith Butler, the fundamentally dishonest academic who twists Judaism itself to find a philosophical framework for her hatred of Israel. She is also the person who absurdly called Hamas and Hezbollah "progressive."

Her foreword shows more of her duplicity in trying to reframe the question of what antisemitism is into the charge of how Zionists supposedly use the charge of antisemitism to silence criticism:

Given the contemporary framework in which the matter of antisemitism is discussed, the conflict about how to identify its forms (given that some forms are fugitive) is clearly heightened. The claim that criticisms of the State of Israel are antisemitic is the most highly contested of contemporary views. It is complex and dubious for many reasons. First: what is meant by it? Is it that the person who utters criticisms of Israel nurses antisemitic feelings and, if Jewish, then self-hating ones? That interpretation depends on a psychological insight into the inner workings of the person who expresses such criticisms.But who has access to that psychological interiority? It is an attributed motive, but there is no way to demonstrate whether that speculation is a grounded one. If the antisemitism is understood to be a consequence of the expressed criticism of the State of Israel, then we would have to be able to show in
concrete terms that the criticism of the State of Israel results in discrimination against Jews.

Already Butler is purposefully distancing herself from any definition of antisemitism that includes being against Israel. And one part of that definition is quite easy: opposition to the Jewish people's right to self determination. The more expansive definition is Natan Sharansky's 3D test: if the criticism is based on demonization, delegitimization and double standards it is antisemitic.

Naturally, Butler wants to obfuscate the issue rather than deal with it, because, well, she agrees with all three and she doesn't want to be called an antisemite.

Instead, she floats the straw man that some nefarious people are claiming that any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.

If modern democratic states have to bear criticism, even criticisms about the process by which a state gained legitimation, then it would be odd to claim that those who exercise those democratic rights of critical expression are governed only or predominantly by hatred and prejudice. We could just as easily imagine that someone who criticizes the Israeli state, even the conditions of its founding-coincident with the Nakba, the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians
from their homes-has a passion for justice or wishes to see a polity that embraces equality and freedom for all the people living there. In the case of Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews and their allies come together to demonstrate that Jews must reclaim a politics of social justice, a tradition that is considered to be imperiled by the Israeli state.

Here she uses the myth, and then she actually promulgates another myth. 800,000 Arabs were not expelled from their homes in 1948. Not even close. But Butler isn't interested in facts; she is interested in using big words to pretend that she is not avoiding the real issue of left-wing antisemitism such as is practiced by JVP.

Her zeal to divide antisemitism from anti-Zionism would be comical if only she was being honest. She admits that saying that Jews control the media and the banks is antisemitic; what about those who claim the "Zionists" do the same thing? What about those who claim the Zionists control the US and other governments? I bet most of the authors in this collection believe that fervently.

Finally Butler gets to the crux of her misdirection:

So to answer the question, why is antisemitism attributed to those who express criticisms of the Israeli state?, we have to change the terms of the question itself. We have been asking, under what conditions can we decide whether or not the charge of antisemitism is warranted? What if we ask: What does the charge of antisemitism do? ...

When the charge of antisemitism is used to censor or quell open debate and the public exchange of critical views on the State of Israel, then it is not exactly communicating a truth, but seeking to rule out certain perspectives from being heard.

Butler's straw man is complete. No one is saying that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but her thesis that this is what is happening allows her to create an entirely new spurious charge: that critics of Israel are being silenced by false accusations of antisemitism.

Therefore, this preface to this volume supposedly about antisemitism is really showing that the book is about justifying modern antisemitism.

Indeed, the first essay by Antony Lerman starts off with his rejection of any definition of antisemitism that includes demonization, delegitimization and double standards concerning Israel:

For activists battling daily against the abuse of antisemitism to stifle free speech on Israel/Palestine, on university campuses and in Jewish religious and communal bodies of all kinds, it may seem something of a luxury to dwell on the reasons why contemporary understanding of antisemitism has become so politicized, bitterly contested, and controversial.

A look at the authors of essays in the volume show that every one is not just a critic of Israel but they question Israel's right to exist as a Jewish homeland:

Preface by Judith Butler

Introduction by Rebecca Vilkomerson

Part I: Histories and Theories of Antisemitism
Antisemitism Redefined: Israel’s Imagined National Narrative of Endless External Threat by Antony Lerman
Palestinian Activism and Christian Antisemitism in the Church by Walt Davis
Black and Palestinian Lives Matter: Black and Jewish America in the Twenty-First Century by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Intersections of Antisemitism, Racism, and Nationalism: A Sephardi/Mizrahi Perspective by Ilise Benshushan Cohen
On Antisemitism and Its Uses by Shaul Magid
Antisemitism, Palestine, and the Mizrahi Question by Tallie Ben Daniel

Part II: Confronting Antisemitism and Islamophobia
Trump, the Alt-right, Antisemitism, and Zionism by Arthur Goldwag
“Our Liberation Is Intertwined”: An Interview with Linda Sarsour
Centering Our Work on Challenging Islamophobia by Donna Nevel
Who Am I to Speak? by Aurora Levins Morales
Captured Narratives by Rev. Graylan Hagler
“We’re Here Because You Were There”: Refugee Rights Advocacy and Antisemitism by Rachel Ida Buff
European Antisemitism: Is It “Happening Again”? by Rabbi Brant Rosen

Part III: Fighting False Charges of Antisemitism
Two Degrees of Separation: Israel, Its Palestinian Victims, and the Fraudulent Use of Antisemitism by Omar Barghouti
A Double-Edged Sword: Palestine Activism and Antisemitism on College Campuses by Kelsey Waxman
This Campus Will Divest! The Specter of Antisemitism and the Stifling of Dissent on College Campuses by Ben Lorber
Antisemitism on the American College Campus in the Age of Corporate Education, Identity Politics, and Power-Blindness by Orian Zakai
Chilling and Censoring of Palestine Advocacy in the United States by Dima Khalidi

Conclusion
Let the Semites End the World! On Decolonial Resistance, Solidarity, and Pluriversal Struggle by Alexander Abbasi
Building toward the Next World by Rabbi Alissa Wise

Omar Barghouti? Linda Sarsour? Dima Khalidi? These are the experts on antisemitism that contribute to this volume?

As far as I can tell, only one writer here does not support boycotting Israel, and that is Shaul Magid. Everyone else seems to support it, meaning that they are guilty of double standards towards Israel (no one boycotts other countries nowadays.) So the entire book is an apologia on how singling out the Jewish state for punishment for crimes that, at worst, are committed by every other nation in active conflicts is not really antisemitic.

Moreover, the nature of the arguments visible from the preview available of the book indicates that the authors not only deny that any leftist criticism of Israel can possibly be antisemitic, but also that any Arab criticism of Israel can be antisemitic. A glance through this blog, Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI shows hundreds of examples of explicit Arab antisemitism, so when Arabs cloak their criticism of Israel in human rights or international law terms, they are obviously masking their true motives. How many "progressive" critics of Israel share those same antisemitic motives? I can't say, but to ignore the issue altogether is not scholarship.

It is propaganda.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

ALESCO, the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization, is essentially the Arab version of UNESCO. It partners with other NGOs and organizations worldwide to promote and coordinate cultural and educational activities in the Arab world.

On Saturday, its Executive Committee met and issued a statement about Jews opening up a synagogue in "occupied" Jerusalem.

Ma'an Arabic reports:

The Executive Council of the Arab League for Education, Culture and Science (ALECSO) condemned the Israeli occupation forces, accompanied by a large number of settlers and members of the Knesset, for opening a synagogue in Baten Al Hawa neighborhood in Silwan, south of Al Aqsa Mosque, along with the misdeeds of the occupation, its settlers, their falsehoods and false claims.The Council said in a statement that the occupation, through its incongruous stories, its settlement tools, its fairy tales and its biblical stories, wants to change the status quo in Jerusalem. The recent targeting of Al-Aqsa Mosque is proof of the occupation's attempt to impose new facts on the ground and undermine the deep culture of Jerusalem. Where the occupation seeks through its repeated attacks and daily violation of all international laws and charters to steal the consciousness of the city through siege, killing and lies.
The Arab Organization called on the international community, human rights organizations, the United Nations and UNESCO to stop the occupation violations and to commit the occupation to the resolutions and confessions of the Arabs of Jerusalem and its components and to stop the series of domination, distortion and fabrication practiced by the occupation to change the city.

ALECSO is saying that is official position is that Jews have no history in Jerusalem and that anyone who claims there is Jewish history in Jerusalem is a liar.

This supposedly educational and cultural organization is saying that thousands of articles of archaeological artifacts as well as contemporaneous non-Jewish accounts of Jerusalem - and basic, settled history - are all fiction.

The only reason that ALECSO officially adopts a decidedly anti-science, anti-historical and antisemitic position is politics and hate.

Yet ALECSO is respected by other organizations. For example, it just reached an agreement with the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Of course UNESCO is a partner, as is the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and many others.

Antisemitic statements by the Right are instantly and correctly condemned by the world. Yet antisemitic statements by official Arab organizations are simply ignored and those NGOs continue to be free to spout their hate as a matter of course, with the oh-so-moral Europeans not uttering a peep of protest - and eager to work together with organizations that issue press releases showing how much they hate Jews.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Haaretz columnist Rogel Alpher compares fallen IDF soldiers to suicide bombers

Rogel Alpher continues to troll Jews. There is no way he actually believes this stuff; he just wants to get people outraged at him so he can keep his job at Haaretz.

The version of “El Maleh Rahamim” sung in official state ceremonies on Memorial Day is a jihadist text that turns fallen Israeli soldiers into shahids. The prayer begins: “God full of mercy, who dwells on high” and continues: “among the holy, the pure and the heroes ... the souls of the soldiers ... who gave their lives for the sanctification of [God] and who with the help of the God of Israel’s wars brought about the rebirth of the nation and the redemption of the land. God is their heritage, may they find rest in the Garden of Eden.”
According to the prayer, Israeli soldiers die in the sanctification of the name God. And thus in fighting and dying, they carried out the commandment that requires them as Jews to give their lives for God. This jihadism is clearly declared in the prayer commemorating the souls of the departed in state ceremonies on Memorial Day. As a result of being holy, the fallen soldiers’ place in the Garden of Eden is assured, and there they will rest. How is this different from the culture of the shahids? A shahid is also someone whose place in Paradise is assured, according to the verse in the Koran: “Think not of those who are slain for the sake of Allah as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord.”
According to “El Maleh Rahamim,” a shahid and a fallen soldier are the same. They both gave their lives for the sake of God, and in exchange, they are both in Paradise. The mentality is identical.

This is a modified version of a prayer that has been around for about a thousand years, changed to apply specifically to fallen IDF soldiers. There are versions for Holocaust victims as well as a group. It was first composed, apparently, to commemorate victims of the Crusades and of the Chmielnicki massacres

The IDF version is very close to the traditional version. It is blindingly obvious that in no way does the prayer encourage people to become martyrs.

Alpher, in his depravity, is pretending that the jihadist idea of martyrdom is the legitimate and original version, and the Jewish use of the term is simply an application of the Muslim jihadist suicide bomber version. No, Rogel, Jews don't want to die as martyrs, but too often there is no choice.

Muslim Shahids willingly die while trying to kill the infidel. Jews become martyrs while trying to save themselves and their people and their faith. To call these two mentalities "identical" is, as I said, trolling.

Alpher isn't that stupid. He just gets his jollies on making people angry. He is not worth hating - he is simply too pathetic a human being.

(h/t Yoel)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

08/27 Links: Dershowitz: 'Intersectionality' is a code word for anti-Semitism; Obama chose dishonor, and Israel will have war

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: 'Intersectionality' is a code word for anti-Semitism

What do the terrorist group Hamas and the anti-violence group Black Lives Matter have in common? What does the democracy of Israel have in common with the anti-Semitic Ku Klux Klan? What does the Islamic Republic of Iran, which throws gays off rooftops, have in common with gay rights activists? What do feminists have in common with radical Islamic sexists who support the honor killing and genital mutilation of women? Nothing of course. Unless you subscribe to the pseudo-academic concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality — the radical academic theory, which holds that all forms of social oppression are inexorably linked — has become a code word for anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bigotry.
Nowhere has adoption of this radical paradigm been more pronounced than on college campuses where, in the name of "identity politics" and "solidarity," intersectionality has forced artificial coalitions between causes that have nothing to do with each other except a hatred for their fellow students who are "privileged" because they are white, heterosexual, male and especially Jewish.
Students at the University of Illinois recently took to social media to express their distress after flyers were plastered around campus calling for the "end of Jewish privilege." The flyer stated in bold letters that: "ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege." The posters had outlines of silhouettes with Stars of David printed out, and an arrow pointing to them with the accompanying caption "the 1%." Although some of the posters identified Black Lives Matter as sponsors, it is not clear whether they were distributed by extreme right-wing groups using hard-left anti-Semitic tropes or by hard-left anti-Semites. In some respects, it does not really matter because many on the hard-right and hard-left share a disdain for Jews, their nation state and so called "Jewish privilege."
The very concept of "privilege" – the idea that white people benefit from certain privileges in Western society, compared to non-whites living in the same social, political and economic environment – has a long and complex history in the United States. The subjugation of black Americans, and other non-whites, is an endemic problem that requires far-reaching legislative and grassroots action. By attributing this domestic social problem to so-called "Jewish privilege," radicals are engaging in traditional economic anti-Semitism; attributing far-reaching societal problems to Jewish status, occupation or economic performance.

JPost Editorial: Anyone is a target: Europe has a lot to learn about terrorism

Retired British colonel Richard Kemp, the well-respected former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and a staunch defender of Israel, called Faaborg-Andersen’s statements “chutzpah.” “Not only does Israel have nothing to learn from the EU,” Kemp said, “but the EU is guilty of encouraging terrorism in Israel.”
He was apparently referring to the EU’s timid kowtowing to the narrative espoused by Abbas, while ignoring the effects of his ongoing incitement of terrorists, whom he reimburses for their “heroic martyrdom” by paying both them and their families millions of dollars in stipends.
In France the deadly terrorist attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher grocery store in Paris in 2015 sounded the red alert for the country’s Jewish communities and those of its neighbors throughout Europe. Today, security personnel take a more holistic approach, making rounds among Jewish schools and synagogues instead of being permanently stationed in front of them as was previously the case.
The French government’s deployment of soldiers in a more flexible way reflects an attempt to protect more potential targets, which now include virtually every pedestrian, whether in the capital or on the beach in Nice. Perhaps the holistic approach to defense is more democratic, since Jews are no longer the specific target of terrorism in an age where everyone is vulnerable.
As a security expert from the European Jewish Congress told The Jerusalem Post recently, “Today the aim of the attackers is to make as much damage as possible without checking who the people are,” he said, pointing to the recent terrorist attack on Barcelona’s bustling Las Ramblas pedestrian boulevard. “Today if a Jew, Muslim or Christian walks in the street, they can get hit in the same way. Everyone is a target.”

Ben-Dror Yemini: Obama chose dishonor, and Israel will have war

The nuclear agreement—misleadingly presented to the world as the lesser of evils—allowed Iran to grow rich and expand its influence in the region. Now, Tehran is taking over Syria, and the distant enemy is coming closer to Israel.
Iran is taking over Syria. The distant enemy is coming closer. The US is out of the picture. Those who put their trust in the new world sheriff, Donald Trump, have to admit he appears to be far more concerned with the American media than the Iranian imperialism. That is who he is.
The world's sheriff is not whoever has more power—the United States has a lot more—but whoever uses the power he has.
Netanyahu had to go to Vladimir Putin this week again for another round of talks with the Russian leader during his vacation in Sochi. It's not clear whether Putin is going to stop the Iranian threat. It is clear, however, that he's the only one there is any point in talking to.ISIS has been defeated on the ground. Over the last year, its fighters have been pushed out of Mosul in Iraq, and in the coming year, probably, they'll also be pushed out of Syria's Raqqa, the caliphate's capital. The problem is that the alternative for ISIS on the ground—Iran and Hezbollah—is just as bad.

Anti-Israel historian Avi Shlaim is not being honest

Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University. writes in Middle East Eye that the Balfour Declaration is an example of British duplicity:

Palestine controlled the British Empire's lines of communications to the Far East. France, Britain's main ally in the war against Germany, was also a rival for influence in Palestine.
Under the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, the two countries divided up the Middle East into zones of influence but compromised on an international administration for Palestine. By helping the Zionists to take over Palestine, the British hoped to secure a dominant presence in the area and to exclude the French. The French called the British "Perfidious Albion". The Balfour Declaration was a prime example of this perennial perfidy.

What Shlaim doesn't say is that the French officially blessed the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine before the Balfour Declaration! As Martin Kramer wrote recently in a tour de force of scholarship about how the Zionists managed to get the entire civilized world to support the Zionist goals in the 1910s:

The French expressed a general sympathy for Zionism, but [Nahum] Sokolow then had the bold temerity to ask for it in writing. And he received it. On June 4, 1917, Cambon issued him a letter (on the prime minister’s authority), which not only anticipated the Balfour Declaration but cleared the way for it.
The Cambon letter, almost as forgotten as Sokolow, was addressed to him and is worth quoting in full:
You were good enough to present the project to which you are devoting your efforts, which has for its object the development of Jewish colonization in Palestine. You consider that, circumstances permitting, and the independence of the Holy Places being safeguarded on the other hand, it would be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality [nationalité juive] in that land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago.
The French government, which entered this present war to defend a people wrongly attacked, and which continues the struggle to assure the victory of right over might, can but feel sympathy for your cause, the triumph of which is bound up with that of the Allies.
I am happy to give you herewith such assurance.
As Weizmann’s biographer Jehuda Reinharz has noted, the Cambon letter “in content and form was much more favorable to the Zionists than the watered-down formula of the Balfour Declaration” that followed it. The French accepted a rationale in terms of “justice” and “reparation,” and acknowledged the historical Jewish tie to the land.

Zionists received official support for their aims from Italy, Japan, the US and other nations as well.

It is true that Great Britain had its own self-interest at heart for supporting Zionism, as does every nation whenever any decision is made. And it is also true that England wanted to maximize its own position in the Middle East at the expense of the French. But Shlaim paints Balfour as a British land grab without looking at this context.

Indeed, Shlaim pretends that the universal support of a Jewish homeland in the West that led to the League of Nations making that goal part of international law is somehow an underhanded British plot rather than a Zionist triumph:

Britain compounded its original mistake by writing the terms of the Balfour Declaration into the League of Nations' mandate for Palestine. What had been a mere promise by one great power to a minor ally now became a legally binding international instrument.

Shlaim here admits that the Mandate was international law. But in this case, he is arguing that international law is wrong. And he is implying that somehow the other members of the League of Nations were somehow forced or bamboozled to support an immoral British proposal that the Jewish people have the human right of self-determination in their historic lands - hardly a controversial position to take.

Unless, that is, you hate Jews.

Shlaim admits in this essay that he was one of the people to sign a petition to force Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration. He was stung by the rejection of the petition:

The Balfour Declaration is an historic statement for which HMG does not intend to apologise. We are proud of our role in creating the state of Israel.
The declaration was written in a world of competing imperial powers, in the midst of the First World War and in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire. In that context, establishing a homeland for the Jewish people in the land to which they had such strong historical and religious ties was the right and moral thing to do, particularly against the background of centuries of persecution.
Much has happened since 1917. We recognise that the declaration should have called for the protection of political rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine, particularly their right to self-determination. However, the important thing now is to look forward and establish security and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians through a lasting peace.

Shlaim doesn't care about international law or human rights or even history. He just wants to use any platform he can to delegitimize the Jewish state.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Here is how Al Jazeera starts off a news article and 45-minute film - not an op-ed - about people who volunteer to help the IDF:

In November 2013, Elena Zakusilo, a Ukrainian Jewish woman, appeared on the Ukrainian TV show "Lie Detector", revealing that she worked for the Israeli army and continued to do so.

"The first time I killed was difficult for me. I threw the weapon and said I wasn't going anywhere. But I went," she said and admitted to having killed civilians, including children.

The only problem is that Zakusilo was indeed lying on the TV show.

The IDF says that Zakulsilo was a volunteer but had no rank or any of the roles she claimed - and her stories were literally unbelievable anyway, claiming that she was in charge of training dogs who would be equipped with cameras and who would be sent to attack Palestinians from ten kilometers away.. But also that she was a combat soldier who killed children in riots after Arafat died. She claimed that she reported directly to a general. Somehow she was not investigated by the IDF after killing however many children she claims to have killed and on the program she claimed to still be working for the IDF in the Ukraine protecting Israelis on airplanes.

Her story has more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire.

Yet Al Jazeera chooses to highlight her obvious lies as the anchor to the program about how nefarious it is that Israel uses volunteers in both combat and non-combat roles:

As thousands of foreign 'lone soldiers' are serving in the Israeli military, Al Jazeera went to find out how and why Israel encourages volunteers from the Jewish diaspora and beyond to work in its army, both as paid soldiers on the front line and volunteers in non-combat roles.
What drives foreigners to join an army which is sometimes heavily criticised for its human rights violations?

Of course every army in the world that sees combat is accused of human rights violations. And dozens of armies recruit volunteer soldiers, including Great Britain, the US, France, Spain, Denmark, the UAE, New Zealand and Serbia. No doubt many more accept non-military volunteers, like Britain's Army Cadets.

In other words, there is nothing strange or underhanded about Israel recruiting foreigners and encouraging volunteers to help the army.

But Al Jazeera is not interested in context. It wants to paint the IDF as being particularly evil and therefore those who want to help defend the Jewish state from the enemies surrounding it are regarded as particularly immoral people.

The show is called "Israels' Volunteer Soldiers" but a great deal of the show deals with non-military volunteers. The screenshot above shows one of the tourist shooting ranges in Israel that has nothing to do with the army.

Al Jazeera says it spent years on this report which was "triggered" by this lying Ukrainian on a game show. Yet it couldn't be bothered to fact check the basics.

Which is why this is, in a very real sense, fake news.

(h/t Joseph Melamed)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.